Through a Mirror Darkly
by ncfan
Summary: Everyone dies. But not everyone dies more than once.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

His hands could no longer clench; the severed tendons were proof of that. A glimmering, iridescent web of blood coated his body, growing thicker and blacker with each passing moment as his eyesight grew weaker and the scope of what he could see became smaller.

Naruto laid on his stomach in the dust, choking on it as it clogged in his mouth and blood bubbled out to make up the difference.

Sasuke was beginning to walk away, his feet making deep oval indents in the dirt that wounded the earth. Each small sound of stepping stuttered Naruto's angry heart even more, driving him to speak through his shattered teeth and garbled tongue.

"Teme!" he snarled gutturally. "Don't you walk away from me!"

This gave Sasuke pause. As the tense silence passed with the blowing of a dust-laden wind, he turned his head slightly, bangs half-obscuring his visible eye. "Then get up and follow me," he answered coldly. With a breathtaking heartlessness, he continued to walk away, never looking back, his back straight and stiff.

Naruto's head hit the dust with a sickening thud. As the last of the blood poured out of his body, he wished he could do it all over again.

.x.X.x.

Tension hummed in the air as Sasuke smirked at him, cold and self-assured. The young Uchiha swished his black cloak, tarnished with rust red clouds, back and forth as an insult to Naruto, who knew what it represented and knew accordingly what Sasuke planned to do.

"Don't wave that thing at me," Naruto growled.

Naruto's legs were broken. They were battered and bruised, numb; Naruto had completely lost feeling beneath the knees, as though struck by some paralysis or if the muscles and tendons had been cut. His left foot was twisted nearly one hundred and eighty degrees around, to where when Naruto looked down, he saw a heel instead of a foot.

There were bloody stumps where his hands had been, gory reminders of what Naruto had sacrificed, all in vain. Sasuke had cauterized the amputated wrists to keep Naruto from bleeding out; Sasuke needed Naruto to live for the next few days. The seal on his chest, something Sasuke had obviously stolen off of Kakashi at some point, obliterated Naruto's chakra.

He was defenseless. He had lost the use of all four of his limbs, and had no access to his chakra. Naruto was about to die in the way all jinchūriki did; betrayed, unlamented, and ultimately forgotten.

Sasuke's face snapped back to its emotionless self. "I'll be dealing with the others next."

Naruto gritted his teeth and imagined himself plugging his ears.

A large, bulky shadow materialized behind a tree, menacing and dark. It shifted into the shark man, Kisame.

Kisame leveled an absolutely murderous grin on Naruto, exposing every row of sharp, serrated teeth. "I see the jinchūriki fell. Good work, kid."

"It was nothing," Sasuke murmured.

.x.X.x.

The discolored Sasuke, all gray and monstrous, glowered murderously up at his former friend, as the thousand birds chirped and screamed in the darkening night.

The waters churned below and around them in the river; a recent rain had made the banks of the river swell dangerously, a powerful, rushing body.

Naruto's eyes were tingeing red through the endless azure blue; the pain was monstrous, but he could endure it. There was a trump card he still had, something Sasuke didn't know about and had never suspected. The feelings of noxious, toxic chakra started to seep over his skin.

But then Sasuke retracted his hand, and Naruto never got the chance. He fell onto the riverbank as his former teammate ruthlessly threw his body away from him like trash. Naruto rolled on the riverbank before stopping, lying on his back.

With a haunted wonder, Naruto fingered the fist-sized hole in his chest, caressed the remains of mangled heart tissue there, as it stilled and cooled, and his hand went limp.

Naruto had thought the Chidori went through his shoulder. He had miscalculated; Sasuke's aim had been a bit more true.

The Chidori had punched a hole in his chest, and torn out his heart instead. Sasuke clenched what he had grabbed in his hand as he walked towards where he knew Orochimaru would be waiting for him.

Sasuke would throw down the heart at the snake man's feet, and show him what he was willing to do for power.

Orochimaru would be thrilled.

.x.X.x.

The two bodies hit the broken ground, writhing with black flame, just two more victims in the rampage of the self-proclaimed last Uchiha.

Amaterasu's rage burned buildings to the ground, wrapping itself with a fiery caress around its victims. That was how Kakashi and Sakura had went, dead within seconds but tormented still, their naked skulls twisted in expressions of inhuman agony.

The guttered, raped remains of the city screamed at Naruto to do something, as Sakura's eyes had begged him to help her as she died. And Naruto hadn't been able to do a thing, just stood there, paralyzed, unable to move or speak. There wouldn't have been anything he could have done anyway; the only one who could extinguish Amaterasu was the one who had cast it in the first place.

Sasuke's voice drew Naruto back to reality. A cold, chill wind blew between them. There was fifty feet between them, fifty footsteps, and Sasuke capitalized on it, his hand on the hilt of his sword, playing with the guard. "You have seen how far I will go." Sasuke's voice was horribly stoic and calm, apathetic and dead. "Now tell me, show me, Naruto. How far will you go?"

A black rage swept over Naruto. _You destroy everything…kill everyone…take from me everything that mattered… And _that's _all you can say?_

A thunderous voice roared over the tide of his disjointed thoughts. _**RELEASE ME!**_ the Kyuubi howled, bracing against its bonds and screaming to be let free.

Naruto wept for terrible joy before darkness took him and the Fox lived again.

.x.X.x.

His hands were pinned to the branches of the trees by long, deadly kunai, his feet dangling beneath him, leaving Naruto in a position not unlike that of crucifixion. The common execution technique in the watery countries now became Naruto's bane, his torture, and his only truth.

Naruto's embattled lungs screamed at the strain of hanging from his arms for more than ten minutes. The deep blue sky mocked him in its calm and serenity, as if there wasn't anything out of place in that picture, as though it was perfectly fitting that he should hang by his wrists to the tree.

It was the only tree in a deep green glade; the long, sweet grasses swayed under the power of the cool night breeze. The sweet smell of wildflowers hung in the air.

Sasuke stood in front of the tree, surveying his handiwork with an absence of…anything on his face. There was no triumph, no satisfaction, no anything. Just a terrifying emptiness.

"Kill him," Sasuke commanded the girl standing behind him, before disappearing down the hill.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun," the girl acquiesced. As soon as Sasuke was gone, she started towards Naruto, drawing a kunai in her small, white hand.

"Hold still," she whispered, and as she plunged the kunai deep into his chest, Naruto saw traces of Sakura in the girl's crimson eyes.

.x.X.x.

Naruto didn't hear Kakashi and Sakura's shouts and screams or see his twelve-year-old teammate's look of horror until it was too late.

The orange-clad genin hit the hard-packed training ground like a ton of bricks, his body suddenly weighing so much more than it was supposed to.

It was Sasuke who reached him first and it was Sasuke alone who leaned over him, his thin, scrawny body practically covering Naruto's even smaller frame.

"Idiot," Sasuke panted hoarsely, anguish hidden by anger and fury. "You're supposed to _dodge_ when a kunai comes at you. Don't you know how to dodge?"

Naruto managed a smile as he taunted Sasuke at the very last. "It's not that I don't know how to dodge. It's that you can't draw the line between fantasy and reality." Sasuke's expression of horror doubled in intensity. "Idiot!"

.x.X.x.

In the evening, moments of confusion came to define the battle.

Kakashi was down for the count, clutching at his Sharingan eye as he double over in pain and jerked down his face mask so that when he threw up he wouldn't choke on the chunks and bile. The eyesight in Obito's remnant eye was deteriorating to the point that it became a huge liability in battle.

Naruto saw his chance when Sasuke dropped his guard and left his back exposed. A grim determination came over him as Naruto drew a kunai and crept towards Sasuke, ignoring the pain in his left arm. He had to do it, he had to, he had to…

But then, when Naruto was barely inches away from Sasuke, the other boy ducked…

…And Naruto looked up just in time to see Sakura's fist collide with his face, her face contorted in a snarl of fury.

Sasuke took the chance to run away.

As Naruto flew through the air, he heard Kakashi's hoarse shout, heard Sakura's strangled scream. And as he hit the ground, not quite driving into the dirt but almost, Naruto took the chance to deplore the fact that Tsunade had ever gotten her hands on Sakura in the first place.

As clouds began to obscure his vision, Naruto got sight of a pair of bright green eyes over him, and through the shattered jaw and broken neck Naruto took the opportunity to softly whisper the three words he knew would hurt Sakura most.

"I love you."

.x.X.x.

Over the years, Naruto's reflexes had slowed. His eyesight had deteriorated, arthritis providing unimaginable agony to his limbs. His blonde hair had went an impressive shade of white, his blue eyes clouding, his once smooth skin a dry riverbed of cracks and wrinkles.

In short, Naruto had gotten old.

And he wasn't the only one.

They were both dying. The kunai protruding out of Sasuke's abdomen and the long lacerations on Naruto's arms spilling more blood than Naruto had ever known he possessed proved it.

Sasuke's black hair was iron gray. His skin still looked more like that of a teenager than a sixty-eight year old man, but his eyes were heavy and old, more so than Naruto's, and they were milky instead of the deep, dark black they had been.

"You still fight pretty well, for a blind man," Naruto commented quietly, fingering the blood and staring at it in fascination.

The milky eyes swung around with disturbing quickness to focus on Naruto. "Still better than you ever did."

"_Don't start_, teme."

They fell into silence again. There was little Naruto and Sasuke had left to say to each other, having expended all the words.

The wind howled over the dry and dusty plain, before Naruto burst out, "Death is cheap. Everyone dies. Even the stars die.

"It's life that's more valuable. Not everyone gets to live, even if they're breathing." Naruto stared intently at Sasuke, his voice dropping. "We never did that, did we?"

Sasuke paused, his mouth open, face troubled. "No," he muttered. "We didn't."

.x.X.x.

The first thing Naruto was aware of when he came to was being dragged. His arm was over someone else's shoulder.

The wind howled quick with the promise of a storm. The storm clouds growled and let loose their lightning as Sasuke dragged him across the rocky hills and through the trees and the grasses.

Naruto had expected to lose when he confronted Sasuke. However, he had never expected the other boy to try to save him, when he had sworn just a few hours earlier when there had been daylight that he would do everything in his power to wipe Uzumaki Naruto from the face of the earth.

Sasuke huffed and puffed as he tried to urge Naruto on. He was bony and thin, having lived on the run for so many months.

Naruto tried to lift his head, his still-working eye glazed as it stared at Sasuke. "Why are you…helping me?" Naruto enquired hoarsely, restraining a scream of pain as his ribs shifted again and poked and tickled his internal organs.

"Dobe," Sasuke muttered with effort.

Naruto's head slumped as blood began to trickle from his mouth. Sasuke noticed this and Naruto could just barely feel an alien heartbeat begin to pound against himself. "I've got someone with me who can help you, Naruto. Just stay awake until we get to her, Naruto. Stay awake, Naruto. Stay awake, Naruto…"

Thunder clapped. Naruto regretted it, but he couldn't stay awake. Not for Sasuke. Not for anyone.

.x.X.x.

There was something pressing against his mouth. Naruto's eyes flickered open. It was a breathing respirator.

The hospital room's lights were extinguished. There was a silence to match the sheer coldness of the room; it was chilly and stagnant, the air lingering with the single question the dead asked.

_When will I get out of this hell?_

Somewhere in the room, Naruto could hear the beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor. The beeps were far and few between, weak and faint.

Sasuke had held no mercy for Naruto on that day, but no malice either. There was no hate in his eyes, nor any anguish in Naruto's. Just an acceptance that no matter what happened, things would never change.

Naruto would have sighed if he could. He would never be Hokage. It was such a disappointment.

As the beeping of the heart monitor became one long, uniform trill, Naruto closed his eyes, and wished he could do it all over again.

* * *

If you're confused as to what's happening, please let me know.


End file.
